For Cindy Sheehan and the residents of Camp Casey

image: A Marine Honor Guard carries the casket with Marine Staff Sgt Chad Simon during funeral services Monday, Aug. 8, 2005, at Roselawn Memorial Park in Monona, Wis. Simon, 32, of Madison, Wis., died Thursday, Aug. 4, of wounds suffered in an explosion Nov. 8, 2004, in Babil Province, Iraq. Following behind the casket are Simon’s wife, Regina Simon, and son, Dylan, 6. (AP Photo/Steve Apps, Pool)

Cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

image and poem below the fold

Winter landscape, with rocks
bySylvia Plath

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer’s reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart’s waste
grow green again? Who’d walk in this bleak place?

– – –

This diary series is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
support the fallen
support the troops
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
read this soldier’s blog
witness every day